Crime and trees

 Since at least 2001, when Kuo and Sullivan wrote about trees in urban housing developments in Chicago, it has been clear that trees and crime are related. But later studies have muddied the waters a bit. Recent studies in Baltimore have clarified things a bit more and CityLab has posted a summary that reduces the relationship between crime and trees down to basics, like: "While low dense brush seems to increase it, tall broad canopies seem to decrease it."

Top 10 books of 2014

PlaNetizen has released its list of the Top 10 books of 2014. It is a great source of ideas for reading over the break.

Crowdsourcing for Open Government

Is crowdsourcing just a fad or is it something that is getting built into an increasing array of activities? This post from WhiteHouse.gov provides evidence of the latter. The post lists several major projects within the Federal government that leverage volunteerism. They cover weather and nature, but also include a link to an effort I had previously overlooked at the National Archives.

Cooper Hewitt

The Cooper Hewitt is about to reopen and it looks amazing. It would be a great trip during the break.

"2014 From Above"

Has remote sensing gone mainstream? Slate has posted a feature on the top satellite photos of the year. Seems like a strong indication that the technology has become widely accepted and understood.

A geodesign dissertation

How many geodesign dissertations have been completed? I don't have an answer. But I can account for at least one.

Former Arizona State University student, Melinda Shimizu, has completed a dissertation titled, The Development and Assessment of A Spatial Decision Support System for Watershed Management in the Niantic River Watershed: A Geodesign Approach. It is exciting to see the ideas of geodesign getting tested. When I hear concerns raised, it is good to know that some are trying to reduce the uncertainty in the field by creating this foundation of literature.

The Hub

Changes are coming to New Brunswick. The replacement for the old Penn Plaza is a towering development called the The Hub. New York YIMBY blog has posted renderings of the new development which will dramatically change the area across from New Brunswick's Penn Station.

What do you think?

Essays on Geography and GIS

Esri has released its latest online issue of Essays on Geography and GIS. For fans of geodesign it includes articles by Shannon McElvaney and for VGI fans it has a Matt Artz essay on citizen science.

Nothing new left to see

A student, working on designs along the edges of a coastal zone, recently said to me that they felt like there were no new coastal projects left to see. Well, the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon by LDA Design seems like something new to me. If you haven't see this £1bn project yet, check out the links.

1WTC review

Here in New Jersey we will be looking at the new 1 World Trade Center a lot. We see it from Jersey City, West Orange, and Hoboken as well as every time we fly into Newark. So this review of the new building from the Chicago Tribune is of interest to us, too.

The spire, on the other hand, has regressed.

Skidmore's plan called for One World Trade Center's communications mast to be sheathed in a tapering fiberglass and steel enclosure, known as a radome, which would have provided a sculptural flourish to the sculpted tower.

Yet when the skyscraper's developers, the Durst Organization and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, eliminated the radome, claiming it would be impossible to maintain, they saddled the tower's top with an exposed mast ringed by circular maintenance platforms. It's all prose, no poetry. Libeskind, in contrast, envisioned an off-center spire filled with gardens spiraling toward the heavens. The gardens, he said memorably, would serve as "an affirmation of life."

A serial atlas as crowdsourced mapping

Does every cultural craze get its own volunteered geographic information now? I don't know, but now that the Serial podcast has achieved 'phenomenon' status (fastest to reach 5 million downloads and streams in iTunes history) it has its own crowdsourced maps.

The /r/serialpodcast subreddit has created an arena for the development of maps exploring the story. This atlas of serial maps has generated more than just basic VGI, but also some elegantly designed maps requiring cartographic skill. Some are basic treatments of bing or google maps, others are conceptual, or temporal. And then there are the strictly topological representations.

The atlas also links to the already existing (and jaw-dropping) effort mapping all of the bodies found in Baltimore's Leakin Park. It is bleak stuff, but deserves more attention than it was receiving before this unusual phenomenon emerged.

In many cases the Serial fans are people hoping to better understand the case with an eye to actually solving the murder definitively. For them, the move towards a crowdsourced atlas demonstrates a real appreciation of the importance of space as the connective tissue for what are otherwise difficult to connect facts.

Story maps

The Esri Insider blog posted a short, but well-linked, piece this morning on the origins of the Story Map template. I especially liked the bees.

Campus water parks

Sorry that I missed this when it first came out, but earlier this fall the NY Times ran a feature on campuses adding water parks as amenities for students. Amazing.

Happy GIS Day

Today is GIS Day, the happiest day of the GIS year. There will be lots of #GISDay tweets and GIS parties all around the world to celebrate.

Last week Burlington County College had a great GIS Day celebration, a bit early.

Today Rutgers will celebrate at 5pm in the Alampi Room at the IMCS building. 


If only GIS Day could be every day of the year.

Kontos Memorial Kiosk

The Star-Ledger has provided some nice coverage of the work that Rick Lathrop and Brian Curry have undertaken to memorialize Charlie Kontos. Charlie was a great presence at CRSSA but most notable contribution was his research into the return of fishers to the northern forests of New Jersey.

Healthy Landscapes Talk at BCC GIS Day

For GIS Day at Burlington County College these papers were mentioned:

• Tang, X., P. Ohri-Vachaspati, J. K. Abbott, R. Aggarwal, D. Tulloch, and K. Lloyd. 2014. “Associations between Food Environment around Schools and Professionally Measured Weight Status for Middle and High School Students,” American Journal of Preventive Medicine (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25343730).
• Ohri-Vachaspati, P., K. Lloyd, D. DeLeia, D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, D. Martinez, M. Yedidia. 2013. “A Closer Examination of Measures of Food and Physical Activity Environments as They Relate to Childhood Obesity,” Preventive Medicine, 57: 162–167 (http://www.rwjf.org/en/research-publications/find-rwjf-research/2013/05/a-closer-examination-of-the-relationship-between-children-s-weig.html). 
• DeWeese, R., M, J. Yedidia, D. Tulloch, P. Ohri-Vachaspati. 2013. "Neighborhood Perceptions and Active School Commuting in Low-Income Cities," American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 45(4): 393–400 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24050414).

Also, some readers may want to check out one or more of these map-heavy reports that Caroline Phillipuk helped make:

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, D. Martinez, M. Yedidia. 2010. Food Environment Maps Chart Book, Camden: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8400.pdf) 

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, J. Chou, M. Yedidia. 2010. Physical Activity Environment Maps Chart Book, Camden: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8540.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, D. Martinez, M. Yedidia. 2010. Food Environment Maps Chart Book, Newark: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8420.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, J. Chou, M. Yedidia. 2010. Physical Activity Environment Maps Chart Book, Newark: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8550.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, D. Martinez, M. Yedidia. 2010. Food Environment Maps Chart Book, New Brunswick: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8440.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, J. Chou, M. Yedidia. 2010. Physical Activity Environment Maps Chart Book, New Brunswick: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8560.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, D. Martinez, M. Yedidia. 2010. Food Environment Maps Chart Book, Trenton: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8460.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, J. Chou, M. Yedidia. 2010. Physical Activity Environment Maps Chart Book, Trenton: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8570.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, D. Martinez, M. Yedidia. 2010. Food Environment Maps Chart Book, Vineland: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8480.pdf)

Ohri-Vachaspati, P., D. Tulloch, N. Petlick, J. Chou, M. Yedidia. 2010. Physical Activity Environment Maps Chart Book, Vineland: The New Jersey Childhood Obesity Study.  Rutgers Center for State Health Policy. (http://www.cshp.rutgers.edu/Downloads/8580.pdf)

You may know Caroline more for her work in promoting the early GIS Days:

Warm Cookies

The award for most interestingly named civic NGO of the day is "Warm Cookies of the Revolution."

Maps are getting smarter

Slate has a lengthy new piece up by Daniel Gross describing the new seven wonders of the modern world. Wonder #2 is the dynamic map, which describes how changes in mapping are now changing everything else we do. Geography matters.

Where is the next Brooklyn?

The Atlantic investigates different answers to this important question of our day.

Location Powers

OGC is hosting a meeting next month that sounds fascinating. Location Powers will be a smart cities meeting in Tokyo, Japan that focusing "on understanding the location and place needs of a Smart City." It seems very geodesign-ish, but is more focused on the specific applications within the urban setting.